DirecTV Hacks Back Hacked Smart Cards

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the take-that! dept

A fascinating article on how DirecTV permanently disabled hacked smart cards for their receivers on Sunday. Since I know some of the Techdirt posters (no, I’m not naming names) have, at times in the past, used hacked DirecTV cards, I found this particularly interesting. The story explains the history behind the hacking of the smart cards, and how each side adjusted over time. The latest attack, though, is fairly ingenious. Over the past year or so, DirecTV has been remotely making subtle changes to the cards which would make them useless again – unless they were later reprogrammed. This is what finally did in our Techdirt friend. However, the real reasons behind this were more sinister. Each “adjustment” was actually part of a program, which was run on Sunday – and which permanently disabled all the pirated cards. Very sneaky.